How many people actually physically type in Google.com into the URL bar and then do the search? I know I don't. I type it into the Search box in Safari.
People don't care about what they use so long as it gives accurate results and so far ALL search engines fail. They have to fail based on the fact they are using boolean searches and so a human not versed in computer thinking will fail to get the results that are required when we think of sentences as wholes not as an entity made of singular parts.
(...)
Sorry for not quoting the whole post for reasons of brevity which was very interesting, and reflects my thoughts. That's my main beef with google, that they brought a simple proposition way back when, effectively implemented, but since then they've spread out into all areas, without actually caring that much for their core users, and their core product.
They spent more than a decade to include an option for searching forums (discussions as they call them), and another about time targeting the results. That's hardly what one can call innovative. At the same time they were very effective in letting all that ad cash flow in. Surely, so many more things can be done with search engines, but google's domination hasn't helped. I don't give a rat's ass about google wave if I have to wait till a few months ago to have simple forum search (which still isn't well implemented)
I don't think highly of google, and seeing their CEO in their keynotes, he came across (other than a bad Steve Jobs impersonator) as a rather slow witted geek. Slow in terms not of geeky aspects, but in terms of common sense, vision and general intellect and perception, the things that high rate geeks are usually worse at. I just think they found a historical chance solely because everyone else was too close minded in searches, and have been milking this ever since.
Where's some modicum of AI (lol, not apple insider) in the searches after more than a decade of immense profits? Where's all that supposed talent in google working on this? Too busy scanning books so they can then blackmail whole industries, libraries and governments to become the big brother for publishing? Too busy gathering personal data on pretty much anyone? What the crap is that 20% creative time bs? What's been so revolutionary about the google, a half decent gmail interface coupled with lots of free space out of their ludicrously high profits?
All those supposed so intelligent algos behind the search boil down to crawling the web for specific words, and using links for ranking. Big f.cking deal. Over the years a lot of people (myself included) have had a lot of good ideas on how google might add some very important missing elements to their searches, but it seems google hasn't really incorporated any of these.
Where's some lexicographical analysis and sense in the search? Why not form clusters of words that might be used for a search? When I search for a critical review or article, is it too hard for google, to analyse a few thousand similar searches and the respective pages, to automatically come up with a cluster of phrases to search that reflect what we mean when we are looking for a critical point of view on an issue. When I type in disadvantages, or criticism I am not looking for these specific words, I am looking for their meaning. How hard is it, say for a example to go over a few book or film reviews and cluster together some phrases commonly used when someone is writing a critical review (I should be saying negative instead, that's more accurate in this context). Then when you type blah blah book negative, you don't find only the the name of the book and the word negative. The current scenario is a Neanderthal level of searching the web.
And that could apply to pretty much any area where words and phrases can be associated and one can find a way to incorporate this intelligence in the search. I am not saying this will be easy or straightfoward, but dammit after all that 20% creativity talk and the self promotion for these guys, they should have at least released some beta AI, or advanced search engine. It's not really innovative to use the ~ sign before a word, so that google searches for synonyms of it as well. That takes about a couple of minutes to implement, get a thesaurus, and each time google sees ~ it searches all the words in the thesaurus for the input word. Big f.cking deal.
How hard is it to maintain a good directory of the web? Once when the open directory was well maintained it used to be a treat to use, and something that couldn't be replaced by a search engine, dumb as they are. How hard is it to have the search engine then search within this directory. Say I want to search within governmental organisations, or uk newspapers, or charities. It doesn't take a genius to put a few clerks there, keeping an up to date directory, if they can't do that, just licence the damn yellow pages, and then search within any group of categories within those of them that have a webpage.
If I want to search within university web sites, why do I have to manually specify say site:.edu, or site:ac.uk. Just make a category of universities worldwide and let me search it, how hard is that?
And these are just suggestions that are barely scratching the surface, most of them dead simple to implement, with a modicum of common sense and vision. But of course they are very into their megalomania (scanning all printed books of the world, producing google waves (....) ) or maintaining their ad profits, for them to even care about these. Although I would side more with the view that they also do lack the common sense required for these...
Anyway, this was an overlong post, I won't bore you any more with other suggestions, there are plenty out there. I just think google has crossed the line with accusing apple of being the big brother, when they are the single most big brother-ish company in the world. Apple just tries to keep their ecosystem consistent and opt to choose which technologies to support, to preserve the much valued user experience, and sell their hardware. At the same time there hasn't been a single company of their size that has contributed more to open standards. And here you have people tracking 90% of the worlds people searching the web, scanning all the books of the world so they can become some big brotherish world publisher, ripping almost everyone off being the world's big de facto brother advertiser, and wreaking havoc on the mobile phone industry by releasing a supposed free os, solely for the purposes of dominating the ad market there too an portraying this (in a most treacherous way) as their love for a free widely available mobile os. Sure apple is bad for disallowing flash in their own hardware devices, and these megalomaniacs are a ok for wanting everyone to pay up to them via their ads in a mobile os set to dominate the world. If there ever was a reversal of reality...but Orwell did write about this in 1984...
What's even more insulting is that they portray themselves as huge innovators for throwing about various hit and miss projects around their search engine, which itself remains way far behind what the times would require. Of course they are lucky because equally moronic directors run the bings and yahoos (apt name by the way) of this world, and the start ups with brains, sense and vision lack the all important clout to be any serious competition to google.
I know this is a bit off-topic, but if Apple greatly lowered (or made free...) their mobile me subscription, it would replace most of the things I use (email, file storage) or would want to use (build/host a web site) Google for.
PolcyMap which is/was (?) built (?) based on (?) utilized (?) placebase is a live functioning web site and after viewing their demo and seeing screen shots from 2008 it certainly seems like each and every map had a copyright mark attributed to NAVTEQ.
So now I'm even less sure of exactly WHAT placebase is/was/owned but after watching a youtube video from last year prior to Apples purchase the maps used ALSO has the copyright NAVTEQ in the lower left corner so it seems pretty clear that placebase was NOT about the 'actual' lowest level maps - however thats not to say that placebase didn't own data found drawn over/on top of the raw maps.
/shrug
This was an interesting nugget I hadn't known before... NAVTEQ is a wholly owned subsidiary of Nokia Corporation.
I totally agree. The search concept needs a paradigm shift. And who better than Apple to 'bring it'
Meanwhile I keep pointing out Apple not only bought Placebase but also Siri. They didn't buy these companies for fun. I keep feeling Apple have something under-wraps. It might be that it is not ready for WWDC but I am hoping this year we see something. Bing may be deliberate obfuscation.
I have no idea how Apple can solve this issue though; search with Google and it pulls up total crap along with accurate information. You can search for something and unless you have sufficient education on the subject how would you know? Just one example, I know people that actually built electrolysis systems to run off their car batteries to generate hydrogen to power their cars, seriously! They point to endless Google results pages to 'prove' this works. Point them to a paper on the first and second laws of thermo-dynamics and they tune out.
It requires part curatorship to achieve quality results and a vast database archives (quality directories). The key here is human curatorship. and if there is a way to aid this through computational power and more intelligent software, then that would be in the correct direction. [myapplelove outlines some of the ideas already in his post just above,]
I believe Google does both. One thing that flawed Google search is its focus on popularity as the basis of "the best". Since it is for the masses, many of whom do not know the difference more than likely, would not know that they are not getting the most reliable sources.
Actually, you cannot blame Google for choosing popularity; It is the easiest to quantify on a massive scale,, all electronically. No need for human intervention to quantify what is popular.
I read some developers talk about "intelligent search" but I only grasped the idea conceptually. I do not know how that the concept was translated into script to create such an intelligent Search algorithm.
They 've already bought a dedicated maps - navigation company a year or so ago, apparently their still integrating it, and nothing has surfaced.
They won't produce an app until they need to. These were all defensive moves... Apple is covering its butt in case Google tries to pull the rug out from under them.
Apple is saying "keep giving us the current terms for using your mapping service, and search service, and we won't deploy our own map and search. We've got it right here. It's really nice, but gosh we think a better arrangement is to stick together."
Google, however did attack with the Ad Mob buy, and then again with Google TV.
You've seen the response to the first one and I think you'll see the response to the second one real soon now.
Exactly what core iPhone app would a GoogleVoice app replace?
As far as I can surmise from GoogleVoice it's a really clunky, limited phone service that brings back all the worst features of phone systems from the 80's.
At first I was really stoked to get an invitation to GV, then after setting it up and trying the jailbreak app on an old iPhone, it was pretty clear that it's a cheesy telephby doorprize from a telemarketing firm posing as a interent developer. What defunct company did Poodle purchase those horrible hardware phone relays from? Were they digging through the dumpsters at a shutdown Sun office? They can't find a grad student to write a lousy piece of software to auto-relay outgoing calls? What's next, taping a pager to your head and calling it SkyMail?
There nothing in GV that even touches a real phone line, much less the iPhone's phone app. I think the author needs to rethink a few things instead of helping Poodle spread their PR.
Free has no value, but peasants sure love the illusion of generosity.
I think the graphics look cheesy and the information primarily shows where to buy stuff. However, if it makes people happy, I can see why they would just put it on the list of alternatives like they have done with Yahoo.
Aside from the technology issue there's the user experience And I wonder how it would clash with Apple's interests. For example, recall how search engines early on would load up with ads? Google insisted on text ads only. It was extremely innovative at the time. But it's an approach Apple criticized when they launched iAds. Now who here wants to go back to days of ad cluttered search pages? Yet, without rich ads Apple won't make much. I don't even think no ads is possible. Apple won't spend billions for nothing in return.
Next Apple or Microsoft even would have to match all of Google's most popular services to be really effective. Internet Search, image search, maps, email. And then there's emerging stuff like visual search which has serious potential but nobody except for Google is working on it.
And none of that even touches on anti-trust issues that could creep up from Apple using its large smartphone market share to target internet search on mobiles.
It requires part curatorship to achieve quality results and a vast database archives (quality directories). The key here is human curatorship. and if there is a way to aid this through computational power and more intelligent software, then that would be in the correct direction. [myapplelove outlines some of the ideas already in his post just above,]
I believe Google does both. One thing that flawed Google search is its focus on popularity as the basis of "the best". Since it is for the masses, many of whom do not know the difference more than likely, would not know that they are not getting the most reliable sources.
Actually, you cannot blame Google for choosing popularity; It is the easiest to quantify on a massive scale,, all electronically. No need for human intervention to quantify what is popular.
I read some developers talk about "intelligent search" but I only grasped the idea conceptually. I do not know how that the concept was translated into script to create such an intelligent Search algorithm.
CGC
The human curatorship poses a massive issue of course ... imagine the Texas School Board being the arbiter for example!
Great! Now I'll never get back to sleep after that frightening imagery.
(self editing out all the funny pics I really want to post as they would be both political and religious.)
Hahaha ... sorreeee.
Good morning good sir
BTW I got my first ever warning and a point by the Mods ...!!! For replying to a Troll no less. It's a shame that IPs or even MAC addresses (not even sure if the latter is possible?) are not taken at time of joining a Blog so banning Trolls can have a few more teeth.
Aside from the technology issue there's the user experience And I wonder how it would clash with Apple's interests. For example, recall how search engines early on would load up with ads? Google insisted on text ads only. It was extremely innovative at the time. But it's an approach Apple criticized when they launched iAds. Now who here wants to go back to days of ad cluttered search pages? Yet, without rich ads Apple won't make much. I don't even think no ads is possible. Apple won't spend billions for nothing in return.
Next Apple or Microsoft even would have to match all of Google's most popular services to be really effective. Internet Search, image search, maps, email. And then there's emerging stuff like visual search which has serious potential but nobody except for Google is working on it.
And none of that even touches on anti-trust issues that could creep up from Apple using its large smartphone market share to target internet search on mobiles.
I don't think that Apple should get into the search business. They don't really need it. From what I gathered at the OS4 intro, Apple doesn't believe in the future of ad-based revenue from searches.
If there is one place I'd like to see them go it would be to directly compete against Google's cloud services. I'd like to see them buy Vimeo which is better than YouTube in most respects. MobileMe would have to eventually be free. iWork.com will have to eventually have some minimal kind of online editing for collaboration with others who don't have iWork. iTunes needs subscription services. I'm sure Apple already envisions a future where iTunes becomes the next Paypal as well.
I don't think that Apple should get into the search business. They don't really need it. From what I gathered at the OS4 intro, Apple doesn't believe in the future of ad-based revenue from searches.
If there is one place I'd like to see them go it would be to directly compete against Google's cloud services. I'd like to see them buy Vimeo which is better than YouTube in most respects. MobileMe would have to eventually be free. iWork.com will have to eventually have some minimal kind of online editing for collaboration with others who don't have iWork. iTunes needs subscription services. I'm sure Apple already envisions a future where iTunes becomes the next Paypal as well.
Re the search part ... People are assuming if Apple did enter the field it would be search as we know it. Remember they bought Siri and that is far from conventional search. Perhaps a paradigm shift in search is coming?
I agree Apple need to get into the video business a la YouTube. I hadn't thought of Vimeo having never used it. Does it already support HTML5 and H264?
Re Paypal ... given iTunes now second only to Amazon from what i read recently in the on line purchases arena this seems to be a massive business for them which they could expand on in many ways for sure. Apple need to get the inter-country thing sorted . I cannot use iTunes easily to gift relatives in UK from USA. And the argument it is too complicated due to currency that some have said is ridiculous .
I don't find Siri to be a paradigm shift. Keywords using voice to text and the Google Search bar on Android come pretty close. Albeit, the experience is not as polished as Siri.
Beyond that the problem is that Siri is really designed for basic functions you'd do all the time. Can't really replace search. Especially since it essentially uses other search engines to do the job. The Siri site itself describes the platform as a virtual personal asisstant.
That said, if Apple owns Siri, I am surprised they haven't rolled it out more widely. Really beats voice 2 text on Android. Not paradigm shifting. But far better than anything on the iPhone right now. And more polished than Android. So maybe we'll see it in a few days?
It's a shame that IPs or even MAC addresses (not even sure if the latter is possible?) are not taken at time of joining a Blog so banning Trolls can have a few more teeth.
IP addresses currently can be banned. MAC addresses - no.
IP addresses currently can be banned. MAC addresses - no.
With the nature of DHCP, mobile devices and hotspots these days, the admins probably wouldn't block based on IP. Although it can be useful information to see which users are coming from the same IP, if you are trying to determine if two different users appear to be the same person. The software does the IP address comparison automatically.
Re the search part ... People are assuming if Apple did enter the field it would be search as we know it. Remember they bought Siri and that is far from conventional search. Perhaps a paradigm shift in search is coming?
It could be possible. I had forgotten about the Siri purchase and could make for an interesting search engine.
Quote:
Originally Posted by digitalclips
I agree Apple need to get into the video business a la YouTube. I hadn't thought of Vimeo having never used it. Does it already support HTML5 and H264?
Vimeo supports h.264 (and a lot of other formats) but, assuming Apple purchased them, the transition could be easily made to support that alone. Vimeo is like YouTube but it's much more geared toward creative artists which would be right down Apple's alley.
Quote:
Originally Posted by digitalclips
Re Paypal ... given iTunes now second only to Amazon from what i read recently in the on line purchases arena this seems to be a massive business for them which they could expand on in many ways for sure. Apple need to get the inter-country thing sorted . I cannot use iTunes easily to gift relatives in UK from USA. And the argument it is too complicated due to currency that some have said is ridiculous .
There is still a large transition that has to be made for it to become something like Paypal but if look at Apple's patents with such things as iTravel, e-Wallet, buying concert tickets and rumors of RFID chips in iPhones it seems as if this is ultimately Apple's intent.
Exactly what core iPhone app would a GoogleVoice app replace?
The killer app Steve Jobs talked about at the release of the original iPhone... phone calls.
Google's app tried to hijack that application so that all calls went through the Google Voice application... or at least that's what all the writings seemed to suggest. Of course Apple wasn't going to let that one get through.
Plus apparently the Google Voice app required unpublished APIs which Apple does not allow.
Me, I like the pictures each day. Probably just me though.
When you combine Google's desire to track every bit of information about you and Apple desire to control everything you see, I seem to have gone full circle back to liking Microsoft.
Whatever way you view it though, this is good, choice is always good. As far as Safari goes this is only news as Safari full's under the world according to Apple where you can't choose any search engine only the ones approved by Apple, which is to some extent is a bit shocking.
It would be nice to see Apple stir away from Google and start developing their own in house solutions for things like Maps, search, etc.
WOAH! Hold the phone. So, hardcore Apple fans, not to say you are, are criticizing Google for pissing Apple's pool. Yet they, again not to say you, also want Apple to make a search engine. Isn't that all a little contradicting?
Comments
How many people actually physically type in Google.com into the URL bar and then do the search? I know I don't. I type it into the Search box in Safari.
People don't care about what they use so long as it gives accurate results and so far ALL search engines fail. They have to fail based on the fact they are using boolean searches and so a human not versed in computer thinking will fail to get the results that are required when we think of sentences as wholes not as an entity made of singular parts.
(...)
Sorry for not quoting the whole post for reasons of brevity which was very interesting, and reflects my thoughts. That's my main beef with google, that they brought a simple proposition way back when, effectively implemented, but since then they've spread out into all areas, without actually caring that much for their core users, and their core product.
They spent more than a decade to include an option for searching forums (discussions as they call them), and another about time targeting the results. That's hardly what one can call innovative. At the same time they were very effective in letting all that ad cash flow in. Surely, so many more things can be done with search engines, but google's domination hasn't helped. I don't give a rat's ass about google wave if I have to wait till a few months ago to have simple forum search (which still isn't well implemented)
I don't think highly of google, and seeing their CEO in their keynotes, he came across (other than a bad Steve Jobs impersonator) as a rather slow witted geek. Slow in terms not of geeky aspects, but in terms of common sense, vision and general intellect and perception, the things that high rate geeks are usually worse at. I just think they found a historical chance solely because everyone else was too close minded in searches, and have been milking this ever since.
Where's some modicum of AI (lol, not apple insider) in the searches after more than a decade of immense profits? Where's all that supposed talent in google working on this? Too busy scanning books so they can then blackmail whole industries, libraries and governments to become the big brother for publishing? Too busy gathering personal data on pretty much anyone? What the crap is that 20% creative time bs? What's been so revolutionary about the google, a half decent gmail interface coupled with lots of free space out of their ludicrously high profits?
All those supposed so intelligent algos behind the search boil down to crawling the web for specific words, and using links for ranking. Big f.cking deal. Over the years a lot of people (myself included) have had a lot of good ideas on how google might add some very important missing elements to their searches, but it seems google hasn't really incorporated any of these.
Where's some lexicographical analysis and sense in the search? Why not form clusters of words that might be used for a search? When I search for a critical review or article, is it too hard for google, to analyse a few thousand similar searches and the respective pages, to automatically come up with a cluster of phrases to search that reflect what we mean when we are looking for a critical point of view on an issue. When I type in disadvantages, or criticism I am not looking for these specific words, I am looking for their meaning. How hard is it, say for a example to go over a few book or film reviews and cluster together some phrases commonly used when someone is writing a critical review (I should be saying negative instead, that's more accurate in this context). Then when you type blah blah book negative, you don't find only the the name of the book and the word negative. The current scenario is a Neanderthal level of searching the web.
And that could apply to pretty much any area where words and phrases can be associated and one can find a way to incorporate this intelligence in the search. I am not saying this will be easy or straightfoward, but dammit after all that 20% creativity talk and the self promotion for these guys, they should have at least released some beta AI, or advanced search engine. It's not really innovative to use the ~ sign before a word, so that google searches for synonyms of it as well. That takes about a couple of minutes to implement, get a thesaurus, and each time google sees ~ it searches all the words in the thesaurus for the input word. Big f.cking deal.
How hard is it to maintain a good directory of the web? Once when the open directory was well maintained it used to be a treat to use, and something that couldn't be replaced by a search engine, dumb as they are. How hard is it to have the search engine then search within this directory. Say I want to search within governmental organisations, or uk newspapers, or charities. It doesn't take a genius to put a few clerks there, keeping an up to date directory, if they can't do that, just licence the damn yellow pages, and then search within any group of categories within those of them that have a webpage.
If I want to search within university web sites, why do I have to manually specify say site:.edu, or site:ac.uk. Just make a category of universities worldwide and let me search it, how hard is that?
And these are just suggestions that are barely scratching the surface, most of them dead simple to implement, with a modicum of common sense and vision. But of course they are very into their megalomania (scanning all printed books of the world, producing google waves (....) ) or maintaining their ad profits, for them to even care about these. Although I would side more with the view that they also do lack the common sense required for these...
Anyway, this was an overlong post, I won't bore you any more with other suggestions, there are plenty out there. I just think google has crossed the line with accusing apple of being the big brother, when they are the single most big brother-ish company in the world. Apple just tries to keep their ecosystem consistent and opt to choose which technologies to support, to preserve the much valued user experience, and sell their hardware. At the same time there hasn't been a single company of their size that has contributed more to open standards. And here you have people tracking 90% of the worlds people searching the web, scanning all the books of the world so they can become some big brotherish world publisher, ripping almost everyone off being the world's big de facto brother advertiser, and wreaking havoc on the mobile phone industry by releasing a supposed free os, solely for the purposes of dominating the ad market there too an portraying this (in a most treacherous way) as their love for a free widely available mobile os. Sure apple is bad for disallowing flash in their own hardware devices, and these megalomaniacs are a ok for wanting everyone to pay up to them via their ads in a mobile os set to dominate the world. If there ever was a reversal of reality...but Orwell did write about this in 1984...
What's even more insulting is that they portray themselves as huge innovators for throwing about various hit and miss projects around their search engine, which itself remains way far behind what the times would require. Of course they are lucky because equally moronic directors run the bings and yahoos (apt name by the way) of this world, and the start ups with brains, sense and vision lack the all important clout to be any serious competition to google.
This is what is really unclear..
PolcyMap which is/was (?) built (?) based on (?) utilized (?) placebase is a live functioning web site and after viewing their demo and seeing screen shots from 2008 it certainly seems like each and every map had a copyright mark attributed to NAVTEQ.
So now I'm even less sure of exactly WHAT placebase is/was/owned but after watching a youtube video from last year prior to Apples purchase the maps used ALSO has the copyright NAVTEQ in the lower left corner so it seems pretty clear that placebase was NOT about the 'actual' lowest level maps - however thats not to say that placebase didn't own data found drawn over/on top of the raw maps.
/shrug
This was an interesting nugget I hadn't known before... NAVTEQ is a wholly owned subsidiary of Nokia Corporation.
Finally...
This may be of some help: http://www.policymap.com/blog/?p=2709
Thanks for the info ...
Siri is another fascinating purchase that could be related maybe?
I totally agree. The search concept needs a paradigm shift. And who better than Apple to 'bring it'
Meanwhile I keep pointing out Apple not only bought Placebase but also Siri. They didn't buy these companies for fun. I keep feeling Apple have something under-wraps. It might be that it is not ready for WWDC but I am hoping this year we see something. Bing may be deliberate obfuscation.
I have no idea how Apple can solve this issue though; search with Google and it pulls up total crap along with accurate information. You can search for something and unless you have sufficient education on the subject how would you know? Just one example, I know people that actually built electrolysis systems to run off their car batteries to generate hydrogen to power their cars, seriously! They point to endless Google results pages to 'prove' this works. Point them to a paper on the first and second laws of thermo-dynamics and they tune out.
It requires part curatorship to achieve quality results and a vast database archives (quality directories). The key here is human curatorship. and if there is a way to aid this through computational power and more intelligent software, then that would be in the correct direction. [myapplelove outlines some of the ideas already in his post just above,]
I believe Google does both. One thing that flawed Google search is its focus on popularity as the basis of "the best". Since it is for the masses, many of whom do not know the difference more than likely, would not know that they are not getting the most reliable sources.
Actually, you cannot blame Google for choosing popularity; It is the easiest to quantify on a massive scale,, all electronically. No need for human intervention to quantify what is popular.
I read some developers talk about "intelligent search" but I only grasped the idea conceptually. I do not know how that the concept was translated into script to create such an intelligent Search algorithm.
CGC
They 've already bought a dedicated maps - navigation company a year or so ago, apparently their still integrating it, and nothing has surfaced.
They won't produce an app until they need to. These were all defensive moves... Apple is covering its butt in case Google tries to pull the rug out from under them.
Apple is saying "keep giving us the current terms for using your mapping service, and search service, and we won't deploy our own map and search. We've got it right here. It's really nice, but gosh we think a better arrangement is to stick together."
Google, however did attack with the Ad Mob buy, and then again with Google TV.
You've seen the response to the first one and I think you'll see the response to the second one real soon now.
Exactly what core iPhone app would a GoogleVoice app replace?
As far as I can surmise from GoogleVoice it's a really clunky, limited phone service that brings back all the worst features of phone systems from the 80's.
At first I was really stoked to get an invitation to GV, then after setting it up and trying the jailbreak app on an old iPhone, it was pretty clear that it's a cheesy telephby doorprize from a telemarketing firm posing as a interent developer. What defunct company did Poodle purchase those horrible hardware phone relays from? Were they digging through the dumpsters at a shutdown Sun office? They can't find a grad student to write a lousy piece of software to auto-relay outgoing calls? What's next, taping a pager to your head and calling it SkyMail?
There nothing in GV that even touches a real phone line, much less the iPhone's phone app. I think the author needs to rethink a few things instead of helping Poodle spread their PR.
Free has no value, but peasants sure love the illusion of generosity.
Next Apple or Microsoft even would have to match all of Google's most popular services to be really effective. Internet Search, image search, maps, email. And then there's emerging stuff like visual search which has serious potential but nobody except for Google is working on it.
And none of that even touches on anti-trust issues that could creep up from Apple using its large smartphone market share to target internet search on mobiles.
It requires part curatorship to achieve quality results and a vast database archives (quality directories). The key here is human curatorship. and if there is a way to aid this through computational power and more intelligent software, then that would be in the correct direction. [myapplelove outlines some of the ideas already in his post just above,]
I believe Google does both. One thing that flawed Google search is its focus on popularity as the basis of "the best". Since it is for the masses, many of whom do not know the difference more than likely, would not know that they are not getting the most reliable sources.
Actually, you cannot blame Google for choosing popularity; It is the easiest to quantify on a massive scale,, all electronically. No need for human intervention to quantify what is popular.
I read some developers talk about "intelligent search" but I only grasped the idea conceptually. I do not know how that the concept was translated into script to create such an intelligent Search algorithm.
CGC
The human curatorship poses a massive issue of course ... imagine the Texas School Board being the arbiter for example!
The human curatorship poses a massive issue of course ... imagine the Texas School Board being the arbiter for example!
Great! Now I'll never get back to sleep after that frightening imagery.
(self editing out all the funny pics I really want to post as they would be both political and religious.)
Great! Now I'll never get back to sleep after that frightening imagery.
(self editing out all the funny pics I really want to post as they would be both political and religious.)
Hahaha ... sorreeee.
Good morning good sir
BTW I got my first ever warning and a point by the Mods ...!!! For replying to a Troll no less. It's a shame that IPs or even MAC addresses (not even sure if the latter is possible?) are not taken at time of joining a Blog so banning Trolls can have a few more teeth.
Aside from the technology issue there's the user experience And I wonder how it would clash with Apple's interests. For example, recall how search engines early on would load up with ads? Google insisted on text ads only. It was extremely innovative at the time. But it's an approach Apple criticized when they launched iAds. Now who here wants to go back to days of ad cluttered search pages? Yet, without rich ads Apple won't make much. I don't even think no ads is possible. Apple won't spend billions for nothing in return.
Next Apple or Microsoft even would have to match all of Google's most popular services to be really effective. Internet Search, image search, maps, email. And then there's emerging stuff like visual search which has serious potential but nobody except for Google is working on it.
And none of that even touches on anti-trust issues that could creep up from Apple using its large smartphone market share to target internet search on mobiles.
I don't think that Apple should get into the search business. They don't really need it. From what I gathered at the OS4 intro, Apple doesn't believe in the future of ad-based revenue from searches.
If there is one place I'd like to see them go it would be to directly compete against Google's cloud services. I'd like to see them buy Vimeo which is better than YouTube in most respects. MobileMe would have to eventually be free. iWork.com will have to eventually have some minimal kind of online editing for collaboration with others who don't have iWork. iTunes needs subscription services. I'm sure Apple already envisions a future where iTunes becomes the next Paypal as well.
I don't think that Apple should get into the search business. They don't really need it. From what I gathered at the OS4 intro, Apple doesn't believe in the future of ad-based revenue from searches.
If there is one place I'd like to see them go it would be to directly compete against Google's cloud services. I'd like to see them buy Vimeo which is better than YouTube in most respects. MobileMe would have to eventually be free. iWork.com will have to eventually have some minimal kind of online editing for collaboration with others who don't have iWork. iTunes needs subscription services. I'm sure Apple already envisions a future where iTunes becomes the next Paypal as well.
Re the search part ... People are assuming if Apple did enter the field it would be search as we know it. Remember they bought Siri and that is far from conventional search. Perhaps a paradigm shift in search is coming?
I agree Apple need to get into the video business a la YouTube. I hadn't thought of Vimeo having never used it. Does it already support HTML5 and H264?
Re Paypal ... given iTunes now second only to Amazon from what i read recently in the on line purchases arena this seems to be a massive business for them which they could expand on in many ways for sure. Apple need to get the inter-country thing sorted . I cannot use iTunes easily to gift relatives in UK from USA. And the argument it is too complicated due to currency that some have said is ridiculous .
Beyond that the problem is that Siri is really designed for basic functions you'd do all the time. Can't really replace search. Especially since it essentially uses other search engines to do the job. The Siri site itself describes the platform as a virtual personal asisstant.
That said, if Apple owns Siri, I am surprised they haven't rolled it out more widely. Really beats voice 2 text on Android. Not paradigm shifting. But far better than anything on the iPhone right now. And more polished than Android. So maybe we'll see it in a few days?
It's a shame that IPs or even MAC addresses (not even sure if the latter is possible?) are not taken at time of joining a Blog so banning Trolls can have a few more teeth.
IP addresses currently can be banned. MAC addresses - no.
IP addresses currently can be banned. MAC addresses - no.
With the nature of DHCP, mobile devices and hotspots these days, the admins probably wouldn't block based on IP. Although it can be useful information to see which users are coming from the same IP, if you are trying to determine if two different users appear to be the same person. The software does the IP address comparison automatically.
Re the search part ... People are assuming if Apple did enter the field it would be search as we know it. Remember they bought Siri and that is far from conventional search. Perhaps a paradigm shift in search is coming?
It could be possible. I had forgotten about the Siri purchase and could make for an interesting search engine.
I agree Apple need to get into the video business a la YouTube. I hadn't thought of Vimeo having never used it. Does it already support HTML5 and H264?
Vimeo supports h.264 (and a lot of other formats) but, assuming Apple purchased them, the transition could be easily made to support that alone. Vimeo is like YouTube but it's much more geared toward creative artists which would be right down Apple's alley.
Re Paypal ... given iTunes now second only to Amazon from what i read recently in the on line purchases arena this seems to be a massive business for them which they could expand on in many ways for sure. Apple need to get the inter-country thing sorted . I cannot use iTunes easily to gift relatives in UK from USA. And the argument it is too complicated due to currency that some have said is ridiculous .
There is still a large transition that has to be made for it to become something like Paypal but if look at Apple's patents with such things as iTravel, e-Wallet, buying concert tickets and rumors of RFID chips in iPhones it seems as if this is ultimately Apple's intent.
Exactly what core iPhone app would a GoogleVoice app replace?
The killer app Steve Jobs talked about at the release of the original iPhone... phone calls.
Google's app tried to hijack that application so that all calls went through the Google Voice application... or at least that's what all the writings seemed to suggest. Of course Apple wasn't going to let that one get through.
Plus apparently the Google Voice app required unpublished APIs which Apple does not allow.
The same with Bing. Really, who uses Bing?
Me, I like the pictures each day. Probably just me though.
When you combine Google's desire to track every bit of information about you and Apple desire to control everything you see, I seem to have gone full circle back to liking Microsoft.
Whatever way you view it though, this is good, choice is always good. As far as Safari goes this is only news as Safari full's under the world according to Apple where you can't choose any search engine only the ones approved by Apple, which is to some extent is a bit shocking.
It would be nice to see Apple stir away from Google and start developing their own in house solutions for things like Maps, search, etc.
WOAH! Hold the phone. So, hardcore Apple fans, not to say you are, are criticizing Google for pissing Apple's pool. Yet they, again not to say you, also want Apple to make a search engine. Isn't that all a little contradicting?